1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector system for a medical device. More specifically, the present invention relates to a connector system for enabling fluid transfer between a first medical device for receiving and/or dispensing fluids and a second medical device for receiving and/or dispensing fluids.
2. Description of Related Art
A problem in connection with drug preparation, drug administration, and other similar handling is the risk that medical and pharmacological staff are exposed to drugs or solvents which might escape into the ambient air. This problem is particularly serious when cytotoxins, antiviral drugs, antibiotics, and radiopharmaceuticals are concerned. Other hazardous areas may be sample taking, such as samples concerning virus infections or the like. When performing infusions, it is often necessary to inject a drug or other medical substance into the infusion fluid inside an infusion bag or other infusion fluid container. This is often done by means of penetrating a septum or other fluid barrier of an injection port on the infusion bag or on the infusion fluid line with a needle of a syringe filled with the medical fluid in question. However, even before this it may be necessary to transfer the medical fluid from a vial to a syringe and then from the syringe to a secondary container. In each of these steps, staff may be exposed to the medical fluid by means of contamination. Such contamination may be vaporized medical fluid or aerosol in the air. The contaminations may contaminate the staff through their lungs or vaporized medical fluid or aerosol in the air which condensates on the skin to thereafter penetrate the skin of the staff. Some medicaments are even known to penetrate protection gloves and thereby contaminate the staff.
Exposure to contaminations like this may, on a long term basis, give rise to alarmingly high concentrations of medicaments in the blood or the human body of the staff described above. It has been understood that due to the many transferring steps between e.g. vials, syringes, infusion systems etc., the risk for contamination during the actual insertion and retraction of a needle from the container, e.g. a vial, needs to be contained. Closed system transfer devices have been developed to ensure that the medicament is contained the transfer device during transfer of the medicament.